I might accept this narrative is Google had just come out and said something like "AI needs more safety research before it's ready to be widely deployed". But that's not what they did.
Google has been saying that for years. Whether they said it because they actually believe it, or because they don't want to break their existing business model is anyone's guess though.
They kinda have until now, but I don't recall they ever stated that it was about "safety" as such. In any case, their recent demo was definitely premature.